(The following interview with a nationally known leader of the Chilean labor movement appeared in the March 13, 1974, Avanzada Socialista, weekly organ of the Argentine Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PST-Socialist Workers party, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International). For obvious reasons the name of the labor leader is not given. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Question. What is the current state of the workers movement?
Answer. There are no mass movements because they are forbidden. Any attempt in that direction is ruthlessly repressed. As a result, the labor movement is passive, temporarily on the retreat. But there is some fighting spirit.
Q. How is this manifested? Have there been any struggles?
A. There have been several strikes - among the Santiago subway workers, among construction workers in the Pincoya and La Bandera shantytown districts, and in the El Teniente mine, at Antofagasta, and at the Compañía de Tabacos (state-owned tobaceo company).
Q. Who led these strikes? For example, the one at El Teniente, where we know some people were killed?
A. It's Christian Democrats at El Teniente. Some of them died when the government broke the strike because the repression was indiscriminate. The strike took place for the same reason as the one during the Popular Unity government-for a sliding scale of wages, which Allende wanted to get rid of. It was on this issue precisely that the right was able to take the leadership of the workers there.
Q. What is the policy of the junta toward these conflicts? Does it show 604
any willingness to make some concessions?
A. In general they take a repressive line. But on a certain level the government has an interest in showing that it is open to dialogue. For example, in the tobacco workers strike there was no repression. The strike was for a wage increase, and the government granted it, although it also raised the price of cigarettes. Another case was with the Asociación Nacional de Empleados Fiscales [ANEF - National Association of State Workers]. There the government granted a uniform salary scale for all public workers, which was a concession because it meant raises, above all for the lowest grades of state workers and civil servants, who are most poorly paid.
Q. What's happening with the unions? Who chooses the leadership?
A. The unions are tolerated insofar as they accept the policy of the government. But in fact union activity is almost nonexistent, since there is no right to assemble, nor to present demands.
With regard to the election of leadership, formally it is the same as before the coup. A list of fifteen candidates is nominated at an assembly and then there is a vote by secret ballot —one man, one vote. The top three in the voting get the posts.
Of course, something is happening here: The leftist workers are either dead, have been thrown out of work, or can't show their faces. So the only ones who can come forward are the rightists, like the Christian Democrats or leaders of the National party or "independents" -but independents who lean to the right.
Q. From what you say, it seems the junta does not have a policy of liquidating all workers organizations and forming corporative-fascist type unions in their place.
A. No. Now that it has gotten rid of the Central Unica de Trabajadores
[CUT - United Federation of Workers], the junta has taken on the job of creating its own union federation. It is basing itself on rightists for this. Christian Democrats; Radicals — the Radical party was in the UP [Unidad Popular-Popular Unity]. One thing is very clear: Since there is no possibility for leftist elements to put forward their positions, the government has a free hand to organize unions led by rightists. These aren't corporative unions combining workers and bosses, but rather labor unions led by a rightist bureaucracy loyal to the military government.
Q. Here we know the names of some of the leaders the junta is playing around with. For example, Tucapel Jiménez of the ANEF, Mujica of the telephone workers.... Can you tell us what their political affiliation is and what kind of influence they have as leaders?
A. Tucapel Jimenez used to be pro- Stalinist, a fellow traveler of the Communist party, but later he moved further and further to the right; Mujica was a supporter of the Radical party. Jiménez was very militant before the UP government came in. He used to win in democratic elections, and he fought against Ibáñez. Mujica too. I knew him when he worked in the municipal workers union and seemed to be a leftist. But they were "floating" elements who never joined any party.
Q. That is, the corporative scheme proposed by Vilarin (leader of the truckers who promoted the "bosses' strike" against Allende) has not been put into practice. The situation is that labor unions continue to exist while the junta's repression is shifting the balance within them in favor of the rightist bureaucracy. They let the unions operate; but the military junta has put a pistol on the scale, tipping it to the right. Is that how it is?
A. That's right, all these people who are lending themselves to the junta's plan are right-wingers. They represent minority sectors of the workers but they do represent workers.
Q. But isn't that a double-edged sword for the government Because, on the one hand, the Chilean labor movement has a strong democratic tradition; and, on the other, this kind of burecucracy is going to be very weak. If there are struggles it will blow apart..
A. The Chilean workers movement has never been under state control, nor has it ever accepted the idea of state tutelage over the working class. So the present state of affairs cannot continue for very long. This is not a strong bureaucracy, like the one in Argentina with a whole crew on its payroll. In Chile they don't have all that apparatus.
Q. On what issues do you think dissatisfaction might explode and produce mobilizations?
A. In order of importance, I think the main issues will be the right to hold meetings, the right to petition, the right to strike, and the restoration of all the civil rights taken away by the junta. If the economic crisis persists, I think struggles will break out. There have already been several strikes, and there could be moreespecially if the repression is relaxed a little.
Even assuming that the present situation continues for a while, if a new vanguard arises that can focus all the discontent brewing among the ranks, then I think things are going to change.